Kismet
by Harpokrates
Summary: There is only one thing to which all beings are beholden. Dracula plays a game and makes a deal.


Kismet

"You are cheating me," the man, if it could be called that, paused for a superfluous breath, "and I am not a thing to be trifled with."

Dracula let his hand sag, and his wine spilled out of his chalice in great bloody rivulets over the stone floor. He watched it trickle down the seams in the shale until it was sucked into the musty tapestries torn from their hangings. He returned his attention to the man with a flick of his pale eyes.

"And how am I cheating you, sir," not that manners mattered much to the undead, "I've never met you. I'd planned to keep it that way."

The man made a noise like a snort and sat in midair, crosslegged like a Turk. "I am an inevitability, Kazıklı Bey, for all men."

"Is that what the Ottomans call me?" Dracula grinned, his eye-teeth biting through his lower lip.

"It is a fitting name."

"It is a name for a man, and I do not count myself among them."

The man leaned forward, tracing his china fingers along the edge of his sythe. White powder fell to the floor, like snow.

"What is a man?" he asked the question like it was a secret.

"Weak, above all else." Dracula rubbed the blood from his mouth, smearing it across his worn shirtsleeve. The cloth was black and heavy with grave dirt.

"Alive," said the man, "and breathing. Both of which I admit you are not."

"Then we have no contract, and my reputation remains unsullied."

The man hummed, a deep and hollow sound. "Far be it for me to tarnish the shining character of our beloved voivolde."

"I, like you, am ever a servant of the people."

"The people?" the man asked, his head tilted under his deep hood.

"We both bring them dread, fear. I am the means by which they are killed and you their shepherd. You ought to thank me," he paused, "I make your role much quicker."

"How arrogant," said Death, laughing, "you claim to be inhuman but you are perhaps the most mannish of all the beings I've collected. How funny, that this one thinks he can command the only truth in this world."

An echo of an old surge of pride welled up inside him. "You call me arrogant, but name yourself as the fate of all men?"

Death looked at him with empty eyes. "Yes," he said quietly, "very much so."

Dracula snarled. Anger was foreign to the dead. Hate, fear, pride -they all died with the body, the rage lost to some Heaven or Hell. But old feelings still burned within him; he as a creature of habit, whether that habit was genocide or grieving.

"There is a word," Death continued, "that the Turks have, from Moslem origin, I should think. You ought to know it: you've killed enough of them."

"There are many words the Turks have from Moslem origin, O being of Inevitability, you'll need to be more specific." Dracula rolled his tongue around the bitter tinge of sarcasm in his words.

"Kismet, I mean to say." Death paused and readjusted himself on his perch in midair. "It is a word for fate, but there is the implication in the word of allowance."

"So I am undead because I am allowed?"

"Very clever, but you are undead because there neither God nor Devil would have you in their fold."

"You assume I am a sheep?"

"I assume you are a wolf, hiding among the flock."

Dracula scoffed. "You flatter me."

"All empty words, I assure you."

The room lapsed into echoes, and then into silence. A rat scattered by, sniffing the remains of Dracula's wine in the ratted cloth on the ground. Death sat, patiently as only he could be. His scythe traced tiny circles on the ground, the wood of the shaft skidding over the rough stone. The shadows in his hood followed the rat as it flinched away from the stink of the dead, and fled the Hall.

"Do you play chess, or is that a game reserved for transient things?" Dracula said.

"Do you mean to cheat yourself out of fate?"

"I would not choose chess if my goal was cheating."

Death gave a lipless smile. "Then is your goal to win?"

Dracula mirrored it. "I would not choose chess if my goal was to win."

"You amuse me. Very well, I shall play," he gestured, and a board appeared in front of him, fixed in the air. Dracula picked up the black king. It was delicately carved, with long features and elegant clothes.

The queen was a skeleton.

"You fancy yourself my protector?" he placed the piece back onto the board.

"How clever of you to notice." Death procured a half-gros from inside his robes. "Will you switch the pieces?"

"A wife is subservient to her husband, and a queen to her king. You ask me if I abdicate?"

"If that is the question you will answer."

"I killed my brother for the throne and you ask if I would abandon it. I assumed i was speaking with creature of omnipotence. Do you offer me Death the unconquerable as my servant?"

"If that is the answer you want."

Dracula held back a sigh. "You are infuriating. Flip the coin, if it means anything."

Death rolled the coin across his fingers. "A half-gros? I could buy bread, and not much else. Perhaps we could determine who would make the first move. Could you rule with this little coin?"

"Could you?"

"Ahh, he is mysterious, this one. I shall title you Prince of Darkness? Would you rage against the living until your blood thickens and your bones fall to dust?"

"Would I have the favor of Death if I did? Flip the coin then, creature! Bind yourself to my rule and play your game a little longer."

Death looked at Dracula, and pushed his cowl back. His empty eyes and hollow jaw seemed to sink back into the shadows, the white bone glinting in the cold moonlight.

He flipped the coin.

* * *

Kazıklı Bey- something to the effect of 'Impaler Lord", I forget the exact translation. Dracula wasn't called Tepes (the impaler) until the German pamphlets detailing his life were published, in the 1500s (maybe? I'm not 100% sure on the dates). The Ottomans called him this after their army marched through a forest of impalees.

Voivolde- Romanian term for 'warlord'. It was the title Vald Dracula used.

Chess- Was adopted from an older Indian game into Europe around the 1200's, and considering Vlad III was raised in  
Adrianople (in the Turkey-ish area) in the late 1400's, he probably knew it.

Half-gros- a type of coin, it had some degree of silver and was round. Beyond that, I don't know enough about coins.

Dracula's brother- Vlad III actually had three brothers, two older and one younger. He and his younger brother, Radu, were essentially bargained to the Turks as part of a hostage thing. Radu got along well enough (he was the only one of the hostages at that time who converted to Islam) and Vlad III did not. Vlad III actually did not kill Radu, but historical accuracy historical smaccuracy. Wiki can't tell me why Radu died so I guess it's a mystery.


End file.
